PNG is not ready for biometric systems

The Deputy Chief Justice has directed the government and PNG Electoral Commission to acquire a biometric system for use in the National General Elections 2027.

Justice Kandakasi is not alone in this push as so many organisations are pushing for this across the country.

A special parliamentary committee has recommended dozens of changes to the electoral process which includes security measures and the introduction of electronic voting.

Our question is: Does the common person, including those pushing for the system, know what a biometric system is and how it can be applied to a population such as exists in Papua New Guinea?

We learn from Google that a “biometric system is a technology that uses a person’s unique physical or behavioral characteristics to identify or authenticate them”.

A biometric system captures an individual’s biometric data, such as their fingerprint, an iris scan, or facial recognition, and stores it in a computer database.

When a person needs to be authenticated, as when he or she fronts up to vote, the system compares the new biometric sample to the stored template.

If there’s a match, the person is granted access.

Therein lies PNG’s problem.

Biometrics is computer based and anything computer based is not going to work in Papua New Guinea.

In this alone PNG has not been able to make anything work that is computer based and which requires reliable power sources.

Computer distribution and literacy is next to nil in this country.

Electricity is not available in 90 percent of the country and where it exists, it is unreliable.

How then does one operate a computer based programme nationwide?

One needs to look to the failure of the 2024 national census to understand the enormity of the difficulties in delivering what is being proposed here. The census just required 22,000 tablets which had been calibrated prior to the exercise to take on specific data.

All the settings were done before the census.

All that was required was to train the people using the tablets to input the raw data and the system would complete the rest.

How has that worked out?

The answer is fairly obvious to all.

How will a nationwide biometrics registration system work?

How would it operate in a country where computer literacy is very low and computer distribution throughout the land is negligible?

Availability to charge mobile gadgets such as laptops, tablets, telephones and other such power-intensive technology is nil.

How much would it cost?

The 22,000 tablets for the Census operation has run into millions of Kina.

What is the full cost and benefit of such a proposition?

Has anybody done the analysis?

A biometric system has been talked about for close on 10 years now without any serious moves towards acquiring the technology or applying it in-country.

India was just introducing it when the talk began in PNG in about 2009.

Today, it is a tested and tried method in that country of 1.429 billion persons.

India introduced the biometric system in January 2009.

By 2018 it had created the biometric Aadhaar ID system to give every Indian the equivalent of a social security number.

By December 2022, 1.3 billion persons had been registered on the system, making it the largest in the world.

What has India had to overcome to introduce the system? How much has it cost in time, money and labour? This requires serious study before any discussions can be had about applying the technology in PNG.

At the present time a biometric system simply is impossible to implement in the country.

The government has not allocated sufficient funding to the NID programme to complete the task many years into the programme.

If government scuttles the NID programme, for instance, in favour of a biometric process, will it be able to fund the new programme?

If it cannot support the simpler process under way today, it will never be able to do it with a more sophisticated system.

We have said in this space before that Australia delivers a successful election without all the computer gadgetry.

PNG can do likewise, the problem is not in the machinery or the system.

It is in the people who run the system.